Germany’s Scholz, Stung By Advance of Far Right, Creates a Buzz With a New and Dovish Line on Ukraine

The recent advance of the far right in two eastern German state elections will reshuffle the deck in Germany’s fractious political landscape, and that includes attitudes on Ukraine. What could be relegated to second-tier status in this week’s debate between President Trump and Vice President Harris is already emerging as a front-row talking point at Berlin.On Sunday the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, told the German television station ZDF that “I believe that this is the moment when we must discuss how we can emerge from this war situation and achieve peace more quickly than currently appears possible.”That was neither a reflexively contemporary German dovish declaration nor a statement that came out of the blue. Just over a week ago the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party prevailed in a state election in Thuringia and made significant headway in Saxony, coming in second.Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW party also made substantial gains, catapulting the hard-left party to a kingmaker position in eastern Germany. Both AfD and BSW are united in their markedly soft stance on Russia.How united? The outspoken AfD politician Björn Höcke has previously said that were he to eventually become Germany’s chancellor — a long shot, at least for the foreseeable future — his first state visit abroad would not be to Washington but to Moscow. The BSW, for its part, is against all military engagements. In its manifesto, the BSW calls NATO “a military alliance whose leading power has invaded five countries in violation of international law in recent years and killed more than one million people in those wars.”When the BSW calls for integrating Russia into a European security architecture, it might seem similar to a stance taken in the past by President Macron, but that is mostly coincidence. Ms. Wagenknecht and Mr. Höcke are both seen as pro-Russia, but they are also proudly Eurosceptic, and each one seeks to prioritize Berlin’s place on Europe’s map. That includes a Berlin without Herr Scholz and the failing neoliberalism of his sputtering Social Democratic Party. So when the AfD, after its eastern triumph last week, told Herr Scholz to “pack his bags and make room,” they meant it. Plus, too, Herr Scholz knows it. He also knows that as the parties on the fringes move incrementally toward the center they will be capitalizing on popular discontent with immigration run amok. The growing frustration with the war in Ukraine arises in part and if only indirectly from the fact that it is hurting many Germans in the wallet.To keep the politics at bay, he needs to lean — eine kleine — into the pro-peace rhetoric of, say, Pope Francis. The lean-in does have some interesting contours, to which President Biden will likely be mostly oblivious, at least at present amid America’s own election fervor. On the one hand, just a few days ago, Herr Scholz met in Germany with President Zelensky. Mr. Zelensky thanked Herr Scholz for “providing Ukraine with comprehensive assistance, especially military, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.” He also thanked his “leadership in strengthening our air defense system, which saves the lives of Ukrainians.”There is scant risk that Berlin is about to abandon Kyiv. Yet Herr Scholz, for reasons of his own political survival, can no longer ignore Germans’ growing impatience with the war. That is the likely reason why he also spoke out on German television in favor of Russia’s participation in a second “peace summit.”The first such conference was held on June 15 and June 16 in Switzerland, notably without Russia’s participation. Given the recent Ukrainian success with its incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, as well as President Putin’s unabated rocket and drone attacks across Ukraine, the warring parties are hardly lurching toward what could be called a kumbaya moment. Herr Scholz did say, though, that “There will certainly be a further peace conference,” adding that Mr. Zelensky and he “agree that it must be one with Russia present.” It is too soon to say whether that is mere lip service or whether Moscow would seriously be interested in a dialogue with so much of the Kremlin’s agenda at stake and with the thick fog of war yet to clear. For the AfD and BSW, what Herr Scholz said doesn’t go nearly far enough. Should the AfF and BSW make a good showing in the state elections in Brandenburg later this month, expect the talk of the town at Berlin to be what to about not only rising migrant crime but also what to do, or not to do, about Kyiv.

Germany’s Scholz, Stung By Advance of Far Right, Creates a Buzz With a New and Dovish Line on Ukraine

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